Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Diversification is a defining characteristic of media firms and products in the new millennium. There was a time when media companies concentrated on their core business, whether through management decision-making or government mandate, and when there were fewer distribution channels available to media producers. Time and innovation altered both of these to dramatic degrees. The parent corporations of the major motion picture production and distribution companies in → Hollywood , for example, are now part of diversified conglomerates with holdings in broadcast, cable and → satellite television , and → newspaper , → magazine , and → book publishing, and other media industries, as well as many others unrelated to their core businesses (→ Media Conglomerates ; Film Production ; Cable Television ). These same corporations, moreover, distribute their products through countless channels, as the films that once headlined theaters around the world are also now viewed via satellite and cable television, home video, video-on-demand, iPods, and other new technologies. The conceptualization of diversification varies in different contexts and across disciplines, so definitions are important. Diversification relates to the range of elements in a given population, whether stock in an investment portfolio or businesses in a conglomerate. Much of the literature on diversification can be ... log in or subscribe to read full text